In the Midwest.

Lake Pollution Criticized

January 27, 1997|By From Tribune News Services.

MUSKEGON, MICHIGAN — Lake Michigan, the world's sixth-largest freshwater lake, is so polluted after decades of dumping by industries that it releases toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a common pollutant, into the atmosphere, The Muskegon Chronicle reported Sunday.

"Our lack of respect for a natural system that we cannot control has come back to haunt us," Gary Fahnenstiel, director of the federal government's Lake Michigan Field Station in Muskegon, told the newspaper. "The lake is so polluted it's now a source of pollution."

Scientists told the Chronicle that PCB pollution falling on Michigan residents because of the PCBs given off by Lake Michigan is negligible. Of greater concern is where the pollutants evaporating from Lake Michigan end up, said Doug Endicott, an environmental engineer at the EPA's Large Lakes Research Station in Grosse Ile.